


A Bridge To Somewhere

by litra, themerrygentleman



Category: Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Dinosaurs, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of PTSD, Mentor Relationship, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours, Portals, Skartaris, Trust, sci-fi physics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-07-10 15:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19908151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/themerrygentleman/pseuds/themerrygentleman
Summary: It should have been a routine day, well, as much as any day could be routine when she was a Green Lantern. Then there was a giant alligator and a portal and Jessica isn't sure if she can handle any of it.





	A Bridge To Somewhere

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[ Podfic Download without music/sfx (MP3; length: 1:14:49)](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2019/A%20Bridge%20to%20Somewhere.mp3)

[Podfic Download with music/sfx (MP3; length: 1:14:58)](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2019/bridge%20to%20somewhere%20sfx.mp3)

* * *

Today was not a good day. Jessica looked at her door. Seven locks, all lined up, deadbolts and security chains and safety catches. She'd managed to unlock each one, but couldn't bring herself to turn the handle. She didn't need to go outside, technically. It was just a meeting with Simon. He wouldn't care if she skipped. He'd assume she was busy. He couldn't even make it half the time himself. 

She should call him, just to make sure he was still going to be there. 

She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, and found a granola bar waiting for her. There was half a box of them left in her bag too. Granola bars seemed easier than real food a lot of the time these days. It had not been a good week.

Jessica shook her head. She took a deep breath and held it, counting to five. As she let it out, she put her hand on the door handle. All she needed to do was twist her wrist... take a step... The door stayed shut, waiting. Green metal mocked her from the middle finger of her right hand.

"You really should have chosen someone else," she said to the green lantern ring, and forced herself to open the door.

It wasn't quite raining as she stepped outside. There was water pattering at the tree leaves, but it didn't seem to be making it to the ground. She looked up at the overcast gray through the leaves, then pulled her hood up and hunched her shoulders. In her pocket she ran her thumb over the ring.

Simon Baz had the power battery this week. As far as she knew he was still in Detroit and not off on Oa or at the watchtower. She really should call him. He was supposed to be her partner, watching over earth while the other lanterns handled the rest of the galaxy. In that moment a whole planet seemed like a very big place. She turned, starting down the street towards the Max station, out of habit. It wasn't like she could catch a bus all the way across the country, but she hated flying in the rain; it was too open and too hazy all at once, no matter how she manipulated her aura.

She'd agreed to meet Simon sometime in the afternoon, once he was off shift. It wasn't like she had a schedule to work around, after all; online classes didn't count. She really should call him...

There was a pulse from her ring and Jessica reluctantly pulled her hand out of her pocket. Please just be another Justice League meeting that she could ignore. No such luck.

"Emergency distress call, hero assistance requested," her ring said, then projected an image of what looked like a fishing boat. The boat had to be at least thirty feet long, with crab traps stacked up against the side of a small cabin. The person in the cabin was scrambling for a radio as another man clutched the railing. As she watched the boat tipped, back end dipping under the water, as a giant scaled foot clawed at the deck for leverage. The creature vaguely resembled an alligator, except it was as long as the boat. Tail churning the water, it opened its jaws, bigger than the man's torso, and one of them screamed.

Jessica hastily covered the projection. There was no one around to see or hear it but it was still instinctual to hide it. Not that she even had much of a secret identity... 

She took a breath, and pressed her back against a tree. They needed help. That kind of distress call was sent out to all League members nearby. She had no way of knowing if anyone else was close enough to answer. A part of her whispered that it wasn't her problem. She would just make things worse. She shoved the thought down where she didn't have to look at it. 

The lightest thought wrapped her uniform around her and she lifted lightly off the ground. Flying was the best part of being a Green Lantern. Ironically, the world didn't seem so big when she was up surrounded by clouds. The first time she'd seen Earth from space, she'd just floated there looking down at it for nearly ten minutes. Today she didn't have that luxury. Her ring zeroed in on the distress call and nudged her in the right direction automatically.

The fishing boat she'd seen in the projection was a mile or so out from where the Willamette River fed into the sea. A three hour drive that took her less than thirty seconds when she turned up the speed. The Green Lantern half-visor slid into place over her right eye, augmenting her vision. The boat jumped into focus. In the time it had taken her to get there, the second man had lost his grip on the railing. Jessica watched him slide down the deck. The giant alligator turned its head, scraping its jaws over the deck. The boat rocked and the mast swung around. The metal crossbar for the sail struck the creature, tangling it in ropes and cloth. 

Jessica punched the air in front of her, willing her ring's power forward. The man was caught between the monster's elbow and the edge of the boat. Even if the creature couldn't bite him, he'd soon be crushed. 

"Not today," she growled to herself. For a moment her construct wavered, unsure what to form, then the light became a chain and whipped around the alligator's mouth. She'd heard somewhere that alligators and crocodiles put all their strength into closing their mouth, not opening it. The creature looked shocked, or as shocked as a reptilian face could. It twisted around, tugging at her chain.

"Oh no you don't." She flicked the chain around her arm, as if leverage had anything to do with will constructs, and rolled into a loop through the air. The alligator was dragged along behind her: first onto its side, then, with a heavy splash, into the water. She held onto her construct. Were the men okay?

The guy in the wheelhouse had stuck out his head, looking up at her with wide eyes. The other guy, where was he? There, tangled in the ropes, but still on the boat. Still okay. Jessica let out a slow breath.

As soon as she relaxed she was yanked sideways, down into the water. For a moment salt filled her mouth and stung her eyes, then she flicked her aura back up and refocused. Her chain was still wrapped around the alligator's mouth. Its tail thrashed the water for another second before it dove.

"Oh no you don't." She had no idea where this creature thought it was going or where it had come from, but she wasn't about to let it get away now. For a moment all she could see and hear was the rush of murky water all around her, and her glowing chain fading towards the dark shape of the alligator. Then she made her choice, and her will pulsed into the ring. 

She decided to stop and not let the creature pull her through the water, so she stopped. She decided that her chain was more than just a chain, so it was. She decided it wrapped around the alligator's whole body, stopping it from moving, so it did. The world tried to say she was wrong. The creature thrashed, bracing it's instincts against her will. Her will came out stronger.

Jessica reoriented, found the surface and dragged the creature up into the empty air, where there was nothing it could do. It was still twisting in her hold, but its struggles were tapering off. Mission successful, now she just had to figure out what to do with the thing and...

A second green light hovering just over the water let her know she wasn't alone. 

Jessica's cheeks puffed out as she breathed out slowly. That wasn't Simon. The Lantern had a more traditional costume, closer to her own, which meant it wasn't Kyle either. It was a body suit, which meant it wasn't Guy. That only left Hal or John... or a Lantern from a different sector, but even though the aura she could tell they were human shaped and 2814 already had more than its share of Lanterns, so probably not. 

Crap. 

Holding up the giant lizard thing suddenly got several times harder. She didn't want to talk to Hal or John. Hal was an ass. The last time she'd seen him, he had fused her and Simon's power batteries together, because they had supposedly failed some test that neither of them had ever been trained for. He was so full of self righteous privilege and John wasn't much better. John barely gave her the time of day. Every time they'd interacted it was just him giving her orders. Sure most of those times were during big multi-hero disasters, but still. He certainly hadn't gone out of his way to make friends.

The green bubble resolved, settling onto the fishing boat. A large chunk of the stern was missing, filled in by a construct. A water pump formed on deck, and started dumping water back into the ocean. The other Lantern landed on the deck and the two sailors came out to talk to him. As his aura sank back to normal levels Jessica was able to pick out the close cropped hair and dark skin; that would be John Stewart.

He nodded to the fisherman, who turned and pointed at where she was floating. Jessica winced. She took another breath, and willed herself forward, keeping one hand and the crocodile well above the water. 

Now that she had the space to actually look at it, the monster was definitely longer than the boat. There were ridges along its spine and it's nose was all stretched and bulbus. Jessica wrapped a few extra strands of energy around it as John floated up next to her. His arms were crossed.

"Having fun?" 

Jessica hadn't known that fun could sound like such a bad thing. She rolled a shoulder.

He shook his head. "Do you have any idea what that is?" He waved a hand at the creature.

It had to be some kind of trick question, "The Godzilla wannabe that was attacking a boat?"

His hands landed on his hips, and he floated slightly higher. Jessica wondered if the intimidation tactic was intentional or subconscious. "The boat that you failed to save. You went after the creature when there were still people in danger. And since you clearly don't know about the creature, you don't know if there are any more of them, or where it came from, or how intelligent it might be. It could have been trying to draw you in. Just because it doesn't look intelligent by human standards doesn't mean it isn't."

"Yeah, alien cultures, alien customs, I got that lecture from Kilowog, thanks." Jessica, crossed her arms. She wanted her hoodie, wanted to disappear into the soft fabric.

"Well, clearly you need to hear it again. As Green Lanterns our first priority is to protect the beings under our care, and because you failed to think about the situation before jumping in, two people could have lost their lives. You're lucky I was in system, I--" His rant was cut off by his ring flashing. Jessica focused on her own ring, focused on maintaining the bindings on the creature. It was better than sitting there and getting lectured. The ring was one thing she could control, even if most days she didn't want to.

A little green figure flickered into life over John's hand as he answered the call, "Stewart here."

"John, you were the one to answer the call off the Oregon Coast?" Aquaman asked.

"Jessica and I, yes, why? We've got a creature here that you might want to take a look at."

So now he was taking credit for that too? Guess it was a good thing she'd captured the crocodile after all, not that he'd ever admit it.

Aquaman nodded. "I thought you might. An Atlantis scouting party found a strange rift off the coast."

"Sounds connected. We'll head your way."

"Sending you the coordinates." Aquaman's image vanished, replaced by a map. John studied it for a moment then turned west, waving her to follow.

"You know, I could have plans already," Jessica informed John as he let the map fade. 

"Being a Green Lantern means these are your plans, now fall in." He didn't even wait for her to respond before he zipped off, flying just above the waves.

Jessica muttered a few choice alien words under her breath. He was a sergeant and a sometime instructor in the Corps, which meant he could slave her ring to his if he wanted. She literally couldn't fight him. She puffed some hair out of her face and sat down in the air. A part of her wanted to push him to actually do it, take control like that, but she didn't need to prove he was right. She brought the creature up beside her, shielding them both from the wind as she willed herself after him.

Jessica had never worked with Aquaman before. Her knowledge of him was generally limited. She knew he was a senior member of the Justice League. She knew he was king of Atlantis. She knew her best friend in middle school had had a poster of him covered in little hearts. She now knew that that poster hadn't been nearly as photoshopped as she'd thought, and most importantly, she now knew that he didn't actually know anything about fish. 

No, that was probably going too far. He had to know something about fish, he just wasn't the kind of expert that all the save-the-planet specials painted him as.

Really, the whole scene would have been pretty impressive if not for the faces he kept making at the possibly a dinosaur-crocodile. The Atlantean ship had risen out of the waves, all gold and glass and trident wielding warriors. Aquaman had his long hair pulled back, and a neatly trimmed beard. Normally she’d have made a comment about the orange fish scale, but she used a weapon based on a color. Glass houses and all. 

Mera, the queen of Atlantis, and as far as Jessica could tell a natural redhead, had been the one actually giving orders. She had gestured them to land and had her people clear a space for the crocodile before offering refreshments. 

“Nope,” Aquaman said. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s an amphibian or because he’s not from around here but he’s got a strong enough accent that even I can’t understand him.”

“Crocodiles are reptiles,” Mera corrected.

“Are they?”

She nodded. Her expression said that she still thought he was adorable even if he didn’t have a clue.

“Can you tell if it’s intelligent?” John asked, ignoring the commentary.

Aquaman shrugged and see-sawed his hand back and forth. Jessica looked out at the horizon. They were far enough out that she couldn’t see the land anymore. Apart from the Alantean warriors that had formed a distant circle around them, the ship was the only thing in sight. She wanted to close her eyes and just drift, but unlike in space she could still hear the world around her, big and empty and looming.

“Are you all right?”

Jessica jerked around at the soft words. “Yes, fine, sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize,” Mera said. A little line appeared between her eyebrows. "Did you see something?"

"No. It's nothing. I just--" Jessica rolled one shoulder, wrapping her arms around her middle. Her aura protected her from the cold and the wind, but in that moment it didn't seem to be working. "I just don't like standing around, waiting." It wasn't a lie, but it didn't feel like the truth either.

"I suppose working with the Green Lanterns is different than working with the Justice League?"

Jessica ducked her head. "I don't work with the League much. I'm still kind of getting used to things."

"I see." Mera looked her over. She wasn't dismissive or scornful, but Jessica still felt judged. "Well, it's the person that matters as much as the powers, I'm sure you'll settle in."

Great, just what she needed, someone else doubting her. It wasn't like the whole League wasn't side eyeing her already, now she had the queen of the sea waiting for her to screw up too.

Jessica watched as Aquaman focused back on the crocodile. He did something and it settled down, not quite asleep but certainly docile. John slowly let the green bindings fade away. When the creature didn't try to attack or escape, he fell back.

"Jessica, you're with me."

"Great," she muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Mind telling me what we're doing, or where we're going, or you know, anything useful at all?"

He glanced at her, his jaw set. "If you'd been listening, you'd know that Aquaman had a lead on where that thing might have come from. Since our rings will do better mapping the area, I said we'd check it out."

"We?"

He turned to face her. "Yes, we. You're a Green Lantern. This is your job. Or do you think you're somehow above the grunt work? Just because this isn't blasting things doesn't mean it's not important."

Jessica looked away. Again she wanted her hoodie, instead all she could do was clench her hands into fists and nod stiffly. It wasn't like that. She didn't want to fight anyone. She hadn't asked for the ring to choose her. Even playing as a kid she'd wanted to be Supergirl, not Green Lantern. It hurt, but at least she was good at dealing with that kind of pain. She locked it away in the box with her anxiety.

"I'm ready." She wasn't, but that wasn't going to stop her.

He nodded. "This way." John stepped off the ship and into the water. His aura lit up around him, and a second later he was sinking through the murky water. Jessica willed her own aura up around her and followed him down.

John moved through the water as easily as he did the air, or outer space. Out of habit Jessica started to swim before she realized she could let her ring do all the work. John’s green light ahead of her was the only thing visible for several minutes before a rock formation loomed out of the gloom. Curving around it, John continued down, ignoring the flickers of deep water fish in the periphery.

 _In brightest day, in blackest night_ \- Jessica let the familiar mantra play through her mind even as she put on a bit of speed to catch up with John. 

"So, umm, where was that rift you mentioned?" 

John glanced her way, then held up a hand. "Aquaman had several reports of shark swarms and dead whales. With that and the local currents, there's only so many places it could have come from."

A small effort downloaded the map from John and she looked it over. The strongest current along the West Coast came down from Alaska, which-- Jessica had to blink and reorient. In the featureless darkness she hadn't bothered to monitor their speed. Now she looked down at the sand barely visible at the edge of their light. The few features she could pick out vanished almost immediately. Already they'd gone hundreds of miles, and it didn't look like John planned on slowing down.

With another small effort Jessica pulled up a planetary map, her ring accessing the Justice League satellites for the most recent topography. Little labels helpfully denoted the Bering sea and the Aleutian trench about a minute before John slowed his pace.

Below them the ground fell away, vanishing out of sight as if the pit went on forever. They had reached the end of the world and it was under water.

"Nice place," Jessica said. Her aura kept out the cold, but she rubbed her arms anyway. At least space had stars.

John grunted, "right, hold on." His ring pulsed, and Jessica briefly felt the ripple of it against her aura. Sonar or something similar. At this point she wasn't going to poke holes in his supposed strategy. 

"This way," he said after a few silent minutes. Jessica breathed out a grateful breath when he turned east along the edge of the ravine. A mountain rose out of the sea floor a few minutes later and once they circled it, a second and a third. Jessica consulted her map again. On it the trench curved away north and a few dozen little cones dotted the otherwise mostly flat sea floor. Of course the scale was in hundreds of miles and she wasn't sure how far they had to go.

"It's within ten or twelve miles, but I can't get a closer lock on it," John said after a while. "Spread out, and scan for any gravitational or spatial anomalies.

Jessica nodded before looking around. Apart from the wall of rock rising up to her right, there wasn't much to see or any hint as to what direction to search. John was already headed north, sinking down towards the seafloor.

"Great, this day just gets better and better," she muttered. Then she closed her eyes and focused her will. The globe that she cast out around her was nearly invisible. Ten feet, twenty feet, fifty feet, the information about everything around her fed back into her mind. Water, stone, a school of very confused fish... It was like trying to watch a dozen screens at once. If she hadn't spent the past half hour in empty water she wouldn't have tried it. Even then, fifty feet was pushing it.

Her eyes drifted open, unfocused. Now that her concentration had shifted the water was tugging at her. There was a warmer current nearby. She rose slowly, until the ocean floor was invisible except for a faint green light marking John's location.

The anomaly, when she finally ran into it, was like a stone skipping across a still pool; impossible to miss, but brief enough she couldn't tell what exactly had happened. Jessica's gaze snapped forward, but there was nothing to see. She wasn't even close to the mountain. It was just a spot of empty water, a warm spot of empty water. She drifted closer.

She raised her ring, then hesitated. whatever had caused the blip, it wasn't there now. Still...

"John, I think I might have found som--" Her words were cut off as the anomaly flared to life again. Heat battered her shields. Something slammed into her. Light flared and she turned her aura up to full to compensate.

Jessica groaned. It felt like water had gotten into her ears, and there was actual light on the other side of her eyelids. Normally her ring countered any altitude changes, but she tried to pop them anyway. John should have rushed over by now. She cracked open her eyes. Beyond her aura the water was green with algae, and the surface was only a foot or so away. Her heart sank even as she willed herself upwards.

It was a jungle. Trees with wide leaves blocked everything but a sliver of sky. Trees with wide leaves and long strands of trailing moss stretched up from the nearest back. The air was warm and muggy, filled with little buzzing insects and the chittering of things in the underbrush. Distantly a larger creature called, and a flock of birds rose into the air.

"What on earth?"

It should have still been mid-morning, but the light felt more like mid-afternoon. She lifted out of the water, turning in a slow circle. Something moved behind the wall of leaves and her heart fluttered in her chest. She didn't want to be here. It didn't matter that this forest was nothing like the one where she'd-- She didn't want to be here. Her ring sputtered.

Fear was the mind killer, the enemy of will in all its forms. Kilowog had a whole lecture on it. He'd been talking about the Yellow Lanterns. In that moment she would have rather faced a hundred Yellow Lanterns, then be trapped alone in an alien forest.

Making it to shore and landing on her feet took everything she had.

She found the trunk of a tree and put her back to it. Phantom sounds rang through her mind, a gasping scream, a gunshot, a snarl of anger, all over her own pounding pulse, harsh breathing and running footsteps. 

It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real… well, maybe her pounding heart, but that was for a very different reason. This might be a forest but it wasn’t that forest. She hadn’t left her friends behind (except she had, hadn’t she. John wasn’t here after all.) 

She closed her eyes. _In brightest day, in blackest night._ She sucked in a breath. _In brightest day, in blackest night._ She let it out. She could do this. All she had to do was fire up her ring and fly, out of this forest, out of this nightmare… All she had to do…

She was shaking, fingers digging into the meat of her arms. There was something moving in the underbrush. It was him, she knew it was him. She hadn’t gotten away this time. He’d come back to finish her--

No. No, _in brightest day, in blackest night--_

Slag why was this so hard? 

A creature shouldered aside a tree and waded into the water to drink. It was twice the height of an elephant, with a long snout like a duck bill, and a single horn sticking out of the back of its head. It was a mottled brown, and Jessica had to make sure it was real. 

She was looking at a dinosaur.

As if the giant crocodile hadn’t been enough… was someone playing Jurassic Park or had she ended up back in time again? God, even the fact that she had to put again on that sentence…

She laughed, weak and shrill, then slapped her hands over her mouth when the dinosaur raised its head. She was pretty certain this kind didn’t eat meat but that didn’t mean it couldn’t flatten her without trying.

Jessica tried to look small and non-threatening. She breathed slowly, in and out. The creature watched her, or at least looked in her direction with one liquid brown eye. Then it cocked its head and turned. Jessica heard it a second later. A thrum like the low string of a guitar, stretching on and on. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The sound cut off with a screech, and Jessica slapped her hands over her ears too late to help. The dinosaur shifted back and a host of birds erupted from the treetops, only to slowly settle back down when nothing happened. Jessica waited a minute before slowly lowering her hands.

Her ring glittered from her right hand, taunting her like it had that morning. So much for getting out of the house and living a normal life. She should have been to Detroit and back by now with time for an early lunch somewhere in the middle. Instead she was who knows where or when, and had next to no idea about the how either.

Her ring glittered.

“Identify galactic location.”

There was a little tug behind her heart as the ring pulled on her will to answer the question. 

[Galactic coordinates unavailable.]

She took in a breath and let it out with a low “fuck.” On the one hand that did narrow down the possibilities. On the other hand, everything left was terrible. 

“Scan for sentient life?”

There was another little tug, and this time the ring flashed. She waited.

[signs of sentient life detected, east by south east] a little needle appeared over her ring and swung around like a compass needle to point in the appropriate direction.

Well at least there was that. It probably meant she was in an alternate dimension rather than in the past, but that provided its own problems. At the moment anywhere was better than here. She closed her eyes. _In brightest day, in blackest night…_ She pushed back the last of her fear. Even so, it took an effort of Will to lift off the ground. 

It was better up in the clear air. She made her will iron, tempered it with conviction and spite. When she opened her eyes her aura flared, and the first thing she saw was trail of smoke against the blue sky. The village was small, maybe a dozen wooden huts and lean-tos. The whole thing was surrounded by a ramshackle fence of stripped logs and uncut stone. Beyond the village was the length of tilled field and what might have been pastureland if the shaggy hooved beasts were docile. The smoke was coming from either a big house or a forge. Little doll-like people went about their lives among the buildings. So far she didn’t think they’d noticed her.

Jessica racked her brain trying to remember first contact protocols. She probably shouldn’t just fly in… Hell, it wasn’t like they encouraged her to go off planet, it wasn’t her fault if she got it wrong. There was a trail headed towards the river. She chose to land there, touching down lightly where no one would see her. She briefly debated dissolving her uniform with the rest of her aura, but no even if the people didn’t attack her there were still the dinosaurs. 

No one greeted her as she walked towards the village, but there were a lot of looks that came her way. 

"Hello?" she tried when she reached the gate. "Can anyone tell me where I am?" With another little tug, she turned on her ring’s translation function.

There was a brief commotion as people whispered behind their hands.

A woman came forward reluctantly. She was leaning on a cane, and her gray hair fell limply over her shoulders. Her features looked more worn down than old. She frowned and spoke. “And who are you to ask? Where do you come from that is not here?“ The words almost sounded like English, if a heavily accented English with a lot of throaty guttural consonants. The ring’s translation was an echo a second behind her words.

“My name is Jessica. I’m one of the Green Lanterns for sector 2814… I’m from Earth.“ The woman frowned and several people not heard behind her. She waved her hand at them until they fell silent again. “If you seek the protection of the great stone, you will not find it here. This village is Soruuk.”

“Well, I can honestly say I wasn’t looking for any kind of protection.“ Jessica flexed her hand, rubbing her thumb over her ring. The woman looked at her, then passed her, tapping her cane in the dust.

“Skartaris is not a safe place for a woman alone.“

“Is that the name of this place, Skartaris?” The woman didn’t get a chance to answer. In the distance a dinosaur roared. Someone started up on a drum, a low repeating rhythm that the villagers immediately reacted to. Jessica tensed, her aura lighting up around her, but before she could act her ring lit up and started talking. “Jessica, report! Can you hear me?“

“John?“ She lifted into the air (earning gasps and cries from the villagers) and turned in a circle. It wasn’t hard to tell where the commotion was coming from. Trees shook as another whistling roar cut through the air. On the other side of the pasture, a swarm of massive buzzing things erupted out of the branches. Before Jessica could react, they were blasted apart by a familiar green energy.

It was John. He was here, and alive. It was enough to make Jessica sag with relief. Except he clearly wasn’t out of danger yet.

A pack of smaller dinosaurs erupted out of the trees. They were covered in bright green and yellow feathers, but even from a distance their teeth were obvious enough. One of the herd beasts bellowed and then they were all running, stampeding crosswise from John and blocking any potential help from the villagers. But not from her.

The drumming cut off abruptly, and Jessica hesitated. Someone was screaming. She wanted to help John, but did he even really need it? He lectured her about leaving people in danger so shouldn’t she stay? Her will wavered, and she sank a few feet closer to the ground.

The rope that snagged her ankle caught her completely off guard. Jessica was dragged to the ground. Her Aura muted the impact, but she still lost her breath. A man stepped up over her, swinging the rope like a whip. She glimpsed hard gray eyes and a scar cutting across the left side of his mouth. Instead of simple cloth like the others, he wore thick leather armor that had clearly seen use. He growled something that the ring belatedly translated as an insult to her parentage. 

Someone screamed.

_In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight._

Jessica grabbed everything she had and pushed. A wall of emerald energy poured out of her. The man stumbled back. He cursed again, but she wasn’t listening. It was so much easier to keep going once she started, and Jessica had momentum now. She pushed again, and landed on her feet. She decided to block the man's rope, so a green shield appeared. 

The man lashed out again, forcing her to keep defending. She braced herself. He was fast. She hesitated, looking for an angle, a way to win.

The next scream was the high pitch of a child. While this brute kept her pinned down, the villagers were seeing their homes torn apart around them. She could only guess at how dangerous those creatures from the forest were. John had had his hands full without trying to protect anyone, he couldn't help. She was the only one in a position to do anything.

So, she did something.

Jessica punched the air, visualizing a dozen chains and willing them into existence. Link by link they snapped into place, a hundred little struggles, each one strengthening the last.

Then she got to the hard part.

Her chains wrapped around the brute, and his will met hers. The crocodile had had instinct on its side. This man was far more cunning. He fought her mind to mind, with petty cruelties and biting words. Every jab meant to undermine her self-confidence – break her will.

_Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power, Green Lantern's light!_

The man gasped, the rope falling from his limp hand as his eyes glazed over. He wasn't dead, but having your will violently broken wasn't an easy thing to deal with. For now, he would keep. Jessica kept just enough focus on the chains around him so they wouldn't fade as she lifted off the ground and took stock of the situation.

Most of the damage was being caused by the herd beasts. They had trampled through the farmland, and knocked down a section of the fence. A few of the feathered dinosaurs were still chasing them, but more of them had turned away, going after the easy prey of the villagers. John had dealt with the insects and was circling around.

Jessica had no idea how many villagers there were, or which ones needed her help the most. She couldn’t split her attention enough to find out. There wasn’t time. She wasn’t good enough.

“Fall in, and cover the hole in the fence,” John barked, zipping past her. 

Right, no time to freeze up. She fell in. There were a few of the herd animals inside the fence line. She decided she needed a wall, so she had one, and she used it to push them back out the way they had come. She planted her wall in the gap and turned to see what needed doing next.

It felt like a few hours before everything had quieted down but her ring told her it'd only been 15 minutes. Half a dozen villagers had been injured, but they'd been quick enough that no one had been killed.

Jessica let herself float down to the ground, releasing her aura in the wave of exhaustion that always followed the use of her ring. Her hands were shaking, and she didn’t have any pockets to hide them in. She scanned the village around her, and her eyes landed on the old woman. She was sitting on the stoop of one of the buildings, bent forward with her head bowed. Jessica bit her lip.

The villagers would probably think this was all their fault. It wasn't even like they were entirely wrong either. It was all just a matter of perspective. She didn't know nearly enough about this place. At least that was something she could fix.

She walked over to the woman instead of flying, and waited for her to look up before she asked "may I sit?"

The woman looked up at her with dull eyes. She didn't look angry. If anything she looked tired, and no wonder. "What do you want?" The woman eventually asked.

"Well, I'd like to know your name," Jessica said.

"Miria," the woman looked back at her lap. Jessica belatedly realized that she was holding something. A stick? No, that was her cane. Such a little thing but so vitally important to the life of one person. Jessica hoped she had another one. She wished she could fix it, but that wasn't the kind of thing Green Lantern rings were built for.

Jessica lowered herself to sit beside Miria. "That's a lovely name. I'm Jessica."

"What do you want?" Miria asked again, sighing out the words like there was no strength behind them. Jessica wondered if there was any will in her at all. If she wrapped her power around Miria would there be any resistance? Any fight? The other villagers had acted like she was in charge but she wasn't acting anything like John or even like Mera.

Jessica considered her question. She didn’t think Miria would believe her if she said nothing. “I want to learn about this place. I want to get home. Barring that, I want a hot meal and a long shower. What about you?”

Miria looked at her, eyebrows raised. “I want the safety of my family. But as you have already seen, that is a difficult thing.”

Jessica nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Me and my friend will do what we can to patch things up before we go, but…”

“You intend to leave us, not rule us.”

“I would be terrible at ruling anyone.” Jessica tried to sound reassuring but she wasn’t sure how well she managed it.

“And yet you leave our protector broken in your wake.” Miria lifted a wrinkled hand to point at the brute. 

At some point in all the commotion Jessica had tied him - with his own rope - to what might have been a hitching post in front of one of the buildings. At the time she’d had too much else to focus on to keep a part of her mind locked on him. On a normal day it wouldn’t have been hard for him to escape, but he was still slumped there, arms over his head, chin on his chest. No one had gotten close enough to untie him, and he hadn’t snapped out of the mind shock. Jessica winced. She hadn’t meant to do that.

It made a bit of sense that the man was the village’s protector. She'd been calling him a brute, but technically she was the invader. He'd just been defending his own, even if he hadn't done it in a very nice way. If this was what it was like visiting other planets then she was grateful she didn't get out much.

Before she could work out a proper response to Miria's accusation, John landed a few steps away.

"There you are. Are you all right?"

Jessica shrugged, "I'm not injured. Just meeting the locals."

John turned his attention to Miria. "Right, care to fill us in on why there's a portal between this land and the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?" He crossed his arms. His eyes were glowing, setting off the rest of his features. Jessica winced again. There were different ways of getting information from the ring. Jessica prefered to use a kind of heads up display. Right now John was getting all the local info downloaded straight into his head. It was an incredibly high level technique. It also looked really creepy. And if she thought it was creepy, she didn't think it would give the best impression to Miria.

The other woman didn't answer the question, she just bowed her head over her broken cane.

"Skartaris." Jessica provided after a long silent minute. "Earlier, they called it Skartaris."

John shook his head, cutting one hand through the air. "That's impossible."

Jessica shrugged, hunching her shoulders under his glowing glare. "That's what they said."

"Skartaris was sealed. We--" John broke off.

Miria had flinched, though Jessica couldn't tell if it was because of the raised voice or the subject matter.

John cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Have you ever read the report of Mission 303?"

"Ah, no. I thought there were thousands of mission reports..."

John dropped his arms and turned to look over the village. "There are. This was the early days, eight or nine years ago. Supergirl, Stargirl, STRIPE and myself were pulled into a dimensional portal over the north pole. We ended up in a place called Skartaris. There was a wizard named Deimos trying to take over. We helped a local hero named Travis Morgan stop him, and in the end I sealed the portal permanently."

The stick came out of nowhere, flashing past Jessica to rebound uselessly off John's aura. He lifted a few inches off the ground, turning to face the attack with his ring sparking. Jessica turned and found that Miria was on her feet. There were tears in her eyes as she lurched awkwardly forward. Jessica belatedly realised that the stick had been her cane, or half of it at least. The other half was being used to thwack John on the arm. It clearly wasn't doing any damage, and John didn't seem to know how to react.

"You, bastard. Fool. It's your fault. No idea what you did, do you? Just walked in and ruined everything, you and that Warlord and--" Her voice broke, scattering random words, and sobs and she trembled. Jessica saw her start to fall and was there a second later, helping ease her to the ground. She didn't know how to comfort her, but she knew John's silence wasn't helping. Jessica pointedly glared up at him.

"Right, I'll just-- do a perimeter check." He took a half step back and fell into the air.

Jessica let out a ragged breath. Miria was shaking but didn't seem to want to be touched. She’d stopped gasping through her tears, so at least there was that.

"Will you tell me about it? What happened, I mean. You don't have to, but I'll listen."

Miria looked down at her hands, curled into claws and covered in tear streaked dirt. For a minute Jessica didn't think she would answer, then her shoulders slumped and the emotion drained out of her again.

"Help me sit."

Jessica supported Miria's elbow, lowering her back to the stoop. 

"It was nearly ten years ago. The warlord had carved out his patch of Skartaris, and Deimos had another. It's always been like that. People coming in from somewhere else and trying to set laws on the people. Some of them mean well, most of them don't. None of them last very long. But that time--" she broke off and shook her head. 

Jessica sat down beside her. She could empathize with the woman's weary slump. She'd only been here for a few hours and she was already exhausted. The unmoving sun above them didn't help.

"That time was worse. Diemos and the men he convinced to follow him had the power of the Scrolls of Blood. They chased the Warlord all the way back to the Great Stone. There was a great battle there. I wanted nothing to do with it. All I saw was the mountain shake and then the green flash. Later word came that there would be no more visitors from the outside. We were cut off. 

"It should have been a good thing. Diemos was dead, and his men scattered. But in his death Diemos had cursed the Warlord, taken his son, or so I heard. That was when Skartaris started falling apart. The seas rose. People got sick. The mountains--" She lifted her head and pointed at the horizon. "There used to be mountains, now there is only a mist as thick as broth. People say there are creatures in the mist, worse than anything we know how to face. It grows closer every day, and there is no way out." Her hand and her gaze dropped. 

"I'm sorry," Jessica said. She wasn't sure she really understood. She didn't have all the context, but if they really were facing a slow creeping death, then she knew they'd have to help. "I'll talk to John. We'll do whatever we can to help."

Miria lifted a hand, then let it fall. "You and all the others. The results will be the same."

Jessica bit her lip. A part of her wanted to argue, but she knew what Miria was feeling and in a mood like that, there were no words that would help. Words were just empty air. Actions were what mattered.

With that in mind, Jessica pushed herself to her feet. John was a green light hovering to the north. She nodded to Miria, then took a few steps and pushed off the ground.

She retold Miria's story in short sentences as John looked out at the horizon. 

"She's right, I remember the mountains." 

"So this is Skartaris?" He'd been so adamant before, a vindictive little part of her wanted to see him admit that he had been wrong.

"It sounds like it. At least that means that we've got a place to start. She said that the sorcerer cursed Travis? Well, I don't know much about magic, but when we went up against him he was using technology from Earth. It's possible that – –"

Jessica was already shaking her head. "So what? You want to scan the whole land for some kind of generator or something. I know you’re the senior Lantern and everything, but that is so not going to work. It sounds like portals to this pocket dimension have been opening up for years. There's no way to tell what's been here for decades and what hasn't. And that's assuming that you’re right about the technology angle. Miria could be right. This could all be your fault for when you sealed this place off." All her frustrations bubbled up as she spoke, spilling over until she was clenching her fists, her aura sparking around her. 

It wasn't just that she was in a crazy pocket dimension, trying to help strangers who didn't want her there. It wasn't just that she'd had to fight off both dinosaurs and panic attacks in the same day. It wasn't even that he kept giving her orders expecting her to be a good little tin soldier. She knew it was just one of her bad days, but that didn't change what had to be done.

Having a logical reason to lash out was a small comfort.

John started to draw himself up again, hands on his hips as he braced himself in the air, but something in her face or stance made him hesitate. He turned, looking out at the horizon again, then shook his head.

"You’re right. This isn’t working." He turned and looked at her again, a frown creased in his forehead. "So, what's your solution then?" His words came out sullen, but not wholly confrontational, and at least he was asking rather than demanding.

Jessica lifted one shoulder, "I don't really know anything about pocket dimensions. I mean, I got the whole lesson from Kilowog in training about battery storage, but I don't even use that because I share my battery with Simon."

This time John didn't put his hands on his hips. "There's not much to know. Lanterns are encouraged to stay away from naturally occurring pocket dimensions like this one. They're out of our jurisdiction. The theory goes that they're like bubbles on the surface of the universe." He lifted his hand and a child's bubble wand appeared between his fingers. He blew gently and a stream of bubbles appeared, each one glowing slightly green. He caught one lightly with the wand and offered it to her. 

"To continue the analogy, you can get into the bubble without popping it through where it's touching the wand. The bigger the pocket dimension, the less stable they are. It could be that this one's time is up."

Jessica lifted an eyebrow, "you really believe that? After what Miria said about the timing?”

He frowned, and the bubble constructs disappeared. "No."

Back to square one.

She just didn't know enough about what was happening, and she didn't have the time to learn. Jessica ran her hand over her head, tugging on her ponytail.

"Okay, last time you were here you closed off the pocket dimension, like blowing away the bubble. But somehow it’s still connected to Earth. Did it get reconnected somehow or…" She trailed off.

John was staring at her. "Maybe it did," he muttered under his breath. Before she could ask, he cursed soundly in an alien language. "The Kryptonite, it has to be."

"What?"

"Certain types of radiation can pass through dimensional barriers. I knew that thing was trouble." He turned even as he spoke, sending out a scanning pulse from his ring. When he took off through the air, Jessica had to hurry to keep up. 

"That's not an explanation," Jessica muttered to herself.

As it turned out, the explanation was self-evident.

John headed for a mountain that hadn't yet been consumed by mist. He angled in towards the top, and Jessica only saw the tunnel when they were nearly on top of it. A short tunnel opened into a large cavern. John stepped onto the ground, walking forward towards a large set of metal doors. They were the only sign that this place important to anyone, though the old scorch marks and tears in the stone walls showed that something had certainly happened here. Jessica could almost see it, John blasting away and someone blasting back, swords clanging around them.

Putting his hand on the door, John frowned. "This isn't right. The last time I was here there were guards. This was an important place. Travis wouldn't have just abandoned it."

"Are you sure?"

John looked at her over his shoulder and she shrugged.

"I mean I get that you liked him, and maybe had a brothers in arms thing, but how long did you know him? A day? A week at most, right? And that was a decade ago. A lot can change." Jessica wrapped her arms around herself, eyes drifting to a point on the floor. So much could change...

She startled when John's hand landed on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

It was the first time he'd actually asked her...

_In brightest day..._

"Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks."

He looked her over for another second before he turned and extended a hand towards the metal doors. He conjured up a crowbar and a big glowing hand, and even then it took an effort to pry them open. Only then did she really get it. 

Jessica's aura flared up as the Kryptonite radiation hit her. The stone was as big as a car, and could have lit the whole cave with its glow. She winced as she remembered Supergirl had been with John during his previous visit. That couldn't have been fun.

John waved her back, and started scanning the area and the rock and the very air itself as far as she could tell. For her part, Jessica was just fine retreating to the mouth of the cave. She pulled her backpack out from where it was stashed when she had her costume on and fished around for a granola bar. 

At some point she'd lost track of how long they'd been in this dimension. She trusted John to figure things out. He might be bossy and single-minded, but those were pretty common traits for Green Lanterns. Besides, he'd been a hero for years, it was in everything he did. Every time he used his ring was instinctual, the way he flew, the way he fought. By comparison she was an awkward puppy still growing into her paws. He would find a way to fix whatever was wrong and they'd go home, and the next time they crossed paths they would just be two heroes who had teamed up that one time.

Slumping against a boulder, Jessica looked up at the unmoving sun.

It wouldn't even be much of a team up. Here she was just following his directions: go there, blast that, follow me. No wonder he treated her like a new recruit. Compared to him, she was still untested. Jessica could just picture how it would look from the outside. The young rookie who looks up to the veteran and learns a valuable lesson before parting ways. Who knows, maybe she'd even tell it that way some day. Her first disaster in an alternate dimension, and how John pulled her ass out of the fire.

Yeah, right. 

The real question was how long it would take to get home and put everything behind them. Even if John figured it out right away, there was always the chance that skipping through dimensions messed with the flow of time. They could get back home days or weeks after they left. The hero community wouldn't care. They understood the hazards to things like this. The rest of her life would be more of a problem, what little of it there was.

Jessica shook her head, trying to empty it of all the negative thoughts that kept crawling around in there, before she got too far into the downward spiral. She and John would get home. She would see Simon and they would commiserate about how crazy being superheroes was. She was a Green Lantern, if she willed it, it would be so... As soon as John figured out how to do it...

"You probably shouldn't stay so close to this much radiation," Jessica said two hours later. At least she thought it was two hours. It felt like more than that, but the sun hadn't moved, so she'd resorted to the clock on her phone. 

John looked up from where he was sitting in the middle of a glowing cloud of equations. "I've got it blocked."

She lifted an eyebrow, and fell back to her second line of attack. She threw a granola bar at his head. He caught it out of hand, then looked down at it in surprise.

"I don't know about you, but my body clock is totally thrown off by this place."

He nodded once and his shoulders eased out of the rigid military posture they'd been in. "Thank you." He let the equations around him fade and let her lead him back to the mouth of the cave.

"So, is this what you do?" John asked as he unwrapped the bar and took a bite.

"Do?"

"In the other half of your life. Do you take care of people? You seemed to handle that woman easily enough."

Jessica made a face. "I didn't handle her, I just talked to her."

"I've known a lot of Lanterns who wouldn't have looked twice at her." John met her eyes. He was actually being serious?

"What, like Guy?"

John smiled and seesawed his hand in the air. "Guy may be rough on the surface but he's a good guy under the bluster. He used to do social work for kids, believe it or not."

"Not, definitely not." She bit her lip, but-- "Like you?"

He let his head hang from his shoulders for a minute, folding the granola wrapper over and over into a little square. "Yes," he said eventually.

There was a minute of awkward silence. "I'm sorry."

"What for? I'm the one who got that woman and everyone else here into this mess."

"I don't know. It seemed like the thing to say?" 

He let out a short bark of laughter, then sobered, looking at her. "So who is Jessica Cruz? Unless you don't want to tell me?"

"Not like I have a secret identity." She shrugged leaning back and letting the words come casually. "I'm a student. Portland State University. I was studying Ecology before, but now, well... Pick your battles and all. I've been taking a bunch of online classes. Trying to figure things out. What about you? You're an architect, right?"

"Architect and Engineer, and it's a good thing too. From what I can tell, the way home is going to require one hell of a bridge." 

It took hours for John to figure out the math.

Jessica was starting to hate the constant unmoving sun and the empty windswept quiet of the mountainside, but in some ways the cavern was worse. No, the worst part was the boredom. Being reduced to playing bubble blitz on her phone was monotonous even for a shut-in like her, especially when it was the only option for hours on end. 

When John finally emerged they once more sat at the mouth of the tunnel, this time in the shade of an old tree. He explained what he had in mind. If she was honest, Jessica only understood about a tenth of it. She just didn't have the technical background to comprehend the complexities of galactic physics.

"Where did you learn all this?" She asked at one point when her head was pounding.

"The Mosaic," he said with a faint smile, and went back to his explanation.

"Okay, so basically when you detached the pocket dimension, the Kryptonite added an extra variable, meaning you didn't put in enough power?"

John sighed.

"In simple terms, yes," he agreed. "You remember the bubbles?" She nodded. "Right, so: instead of bubble, imagine a balloon. The Kryptonite is the string tying this universe back to ours. As far as I can tell, the power fluctuations that created this universe are unstable. The breaches between the two worlds acted as a balancing force, keeping this universe stable."

Jessica frowned, "But wouldn't that destabilize our universe?"

"It's a matter of scale. Our universe has a lot more mass and energy to work with. Adding or losing such a small percentage won’t tip things one way or the other." John waited for her to nod before continuing. "As far as I can tell, the mist is the pocket dimension attempting to stabilize on its own. Like putting a pinprick in a balloon rather then letting it explode. The downside to that is that while it stabilizes things on the upper end, it does nothing for the lower end of things."

"It removes but doesn’t add." Jessica agreed. That bit at least she could understand perfectly. She let her mind roll forward, playing the problem out to the end. "So we need to either remove the instability, the Kryptonite. Except that would also remove the tether to our world."

"Leaving no way back." John agreed. He paused, squinting up at the sky. Overhead the tree rustled in a chill breeze. "It's a last case solution."

They would survive, as would everyone else in this universe, but it wouldn't be really living. Jessica knew the difference all too well. 

"So then we have to reattach the pocket dimension." Even as she said it, Jessica hoped she was right. 

"Exactly, which leads to my next question: How much charge does your ring have?"

For a minute Jessica was stumped by the sudden right turn in the conversation. She glanced down at her ring, and felt that little tug in her chest as she spoke.

"Power levels?"

[64%] the ring answered.

John breathed out a sigh, his shoulders easing.

"Why?"

"You know the two power modes?"

She did. Every ring could be set to high power mode, which required a recharge once a day, or it could be set to low power mode. She'd been forced to use low power mode ever since the thing with Simon, Hal and their batteries. It meant that each of her attacks was a fraction less powerful, and some of the features, like the galactic translation and emergency self-defence protocols, were turned off. On the other hand, it wasn't like she needed to fly across the galaxy every other day so it had never been a problem.

John held up his hand and his ring reported [17%]

Jessica's teeth clicked as her jaw locked up. That wasn't right. John was the expert here, there was no way his ring... They hadn't been here that long, had they? Sure he'd used his ring more then her, fighting the creatures at the village, his demonstrations, the math, even finding the portal in the first place, but was it really enough to...

"My battery is back at the Watchtower," John was saying.

Then it clicked, "So you need me to charge your ring? I can do that. Me and Simon have had to do that a couple times. I'll just--"

He was shaking his head. "Not quite." He held up a hand to stop her protest. "You're the one who found this place. The portal opened for you, not me. I only got here because I was following you. It's my own fault. I'm the one who tried to seal off this universe, and some of that energy is still around as far as I can tell. Green energy doesn't give up. If I tried to do this, I'd be working at cross purposes to myself."

Jessica opened her mouth, gaping like a fish as she tried to put how bad an idea that was into words. "I have no idea what I'm doing," she finally managed to stammer out. “You could explain it a hundred times and I wouldn't get it, and we don't have time for it anyway." She stood, her hands flying around her as if looking for something to grab hold of.

"You're not giving yourself enough credit."

"Yeah right, because you totally thought that this morning when you were lecturing me. Admit it, if you could do this you would. If there were any other Lanterns here you'd be asking them. Hell, if there was someone in this universe who knew how to use a power ring we'd be looking them up by now--"

"Jessica." Her name, sharp as a whip, cut through her tirade, and made her throat close up again.

"Fear is the enemy of Will," he reminded her in a soft voice. "And anyway, you're wrong." He gestured to the ground beside him and waited until she sat back down before continuing. "I'm sorry about before. We haven't really worked together, but I've read up on you and then when I saw you-- I guess you reminded me of some of the friends I've known who have been through shit. Green Lanterns can get PTSD just as easily as anyone. Well, at least the Lanterns with similar brains to humans. And before that, in the army... Before I've always coped by pushing forward, and dragging my friends forward with me if it came to that." He looked at her and for once his aura wasn't lit up. His brown eyes were surprisingly soft.

"I let what I was seeing be colored by those expectations, and I'm sorry. I do believe you can do this. And I'll be there to guide you through it."

Jessica couldn't meet his eyes. That sour little voice, the one that never wanted her to leave the safety of her house, was whispering that he was lying, that he was desperate, that they were all dead if she tried something that big.

But...

She knew how to deal with that voice. She'd been dealing with it every day for months. Kicking it down and locking it in the little box in the back of her mind was almost routine.

_In brightest day, in blackest night..._

Jessica opened her eyes, looking up at where John was patiently waiting for her decision.

"What exactly would I need to do?"

"You've done combined constructs with other lanterns right? It'll be like that, but instead of each of us building half, I'll feed your ring the blueprints and then you build it."

She nodded. She was pretty sure her voice would crack if she tried to talk.

"Whenever you're ready," John prompted. 

Again that little voice popped up, saying wait. Saying that she should rest, and learn more, and again she shoved it back in its box.

"I'm ready."

She wasn't, but she was going to open the door anyway.

Jessica didn’t want to push it by doing anything out in the open, and risking distraction or worse, plus they needed access to the Kryptonite, so they filed into the cavern. There weren’t any preparations that needed to be made. It was just the two of them, standing across from each other. It felt a little underwhelming, but her nerves were more than making up for it.

“Start by opening a portal the same way you would for battery storage,” John instructed. “Then instead of just making a pocket, tie it into the Kryptonite signature.”

Jessica held up her hand, fist clenched.She visualized a split in the air, just a hair thin line, but glowing with light from beyond like a crack in a door. She decided it existed, so it did, and she gasped.

Inanimate objects didn’t have will, not like people or even animals. Jessica had heard stories about Lanterns struggling to hold back storms or energy bolts or other things like that, and she’d never really understood it. A stone couldn’t fight a sculptor. Somehow, this stone did. The Kryptonite fought back.

She felt like she was trying to walk through a wildfire. Jessica held on to her construct through the crackling pressure that sent needles against her skin.

She could do this. She had to do this. _In brightest day…_

“Find the tether,” John was saying from somewhere far away. ”I’m feeding the information to you now.” 

She wasn’t ready for it. The radiation fire was still flooding against her senses, and she hadn’t even found the tether, let alone hooked her portal to it. The download to her ring felt like a gust of wind, threatening to knock her off her feet.

There were too many things to focus on, and the human mind had never been designed to handle that kind of sensory upload. Jessica blocked out the only thing that she could afford to, the real world. She closed her eyes, and gave shape to the information she was receiving. A shape she could control.

The radiation was a wildfire, but a wildfire coming from one direction, waiting for her when she was ready for it, but irrelevant until then… at least as long as she was careful. The information wasn’t a gale, it was a firehose. She didn’t have to understand it, she just had to aim it, and her pocket dimension was the nozzle that would let her do it.

She fixed the images in her mind, and locked them into place with her will. The tug at her chest as the ring’s power took hold was almost a comfort. Not yet, she told it, and turned her attention to the wildfire.

Jessica saw the tether back to their home as a gap in the firebreak. She could do this. She just needed to follow the trail. Follow that torrent back home. 

“In brightest day,” Jessica only realized she was speaking out loud when John’s voice joined her.

“In blackest night.” 

Jessica gathered her will and unleashed it, throwing forward her constructs into the space between worlds. For a moment the radiation flared up. In her mind the wildfire leapt for the sky in a last attempt at life. 

“No evil shall escape my sight.”

Not today. She decided that it didn’t get to escape. It was powerful, but in the same way gravity was powerful. People still made it to the stars.

John’s blueprints spread out before her mind’s eye, building from the ground up.

“Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power--”

John’s voice cut off, dropping away. The power he was feeding to her fluttered and died. 

She was alone.

For a moment her heart fluttered in her chest. The wildfire leapt up again, and she desperately held on.

What had happened? Was he okay? Had something happened? Was it something outside or something she’d done? Jessica knew she could open her eyes and find out, but if she did, she knew she’d lose track of the bridge home. 

A hand landed on her shoulder. John’s hand. He was still there. He trusted her. She could do this… assuming she could figure out how.

John’s blueprints were only half built. She saw them as pillars rising out of the dark, reinforcing the tether even as they pulled on it. A glowing path. A road leading home. A bridge.

Jessica latched onto the idea of home. Portland, Oregon. Tree lined neighborhoods dripping with rain. Bicycles, and busses, and bridges over the Willamette river. Bridges lighting up the night. 

“Green Lantern’s Light!” Jessica shoved everything she had into the words and the constructs, that single image blazing in her mind. She reached desperate and stubborn and willful, falling forward through fire and darkness.

[whatever sound effects were used for the first portal are repeated here. When the portal sounds end, we are left with the sound of water. The sound effects last for a few seconds before the narration starts up again.]

There were lights over her. A stripe across the starry sky, with shapes to either side. Jessica had never seen the steel bridge from this angle before. To her right the lights from the Moda center backlit the old mill building, while downtown and the Go By Train neon glowed to her left. 

She was home. She was also damp. Her skin felt kind of slimy and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the water she was floating in or the whole traveling between worlds thing.

“Jessica?”

She blinked, shook the water out of one ear and twisted around until she could lift herself up in the water a bit. Another person was swimming towards her.

“John, I’m here.” She lifted a hand and waved. He splashed over to her. His uniform was still in place, but his aura was gone. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, you?” He waited for her to nod before continuing, “I’m sorry. My ring ran out of power, but you did it. You got us back.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed briefly before going back to treading water.

Jessica looked down at her own ring, “Yeah, I’m at minimal power, but I think I can…”

Even something as simple as flying hurt like sandpaper on a sunburn. She needed sleep, and food and all the rest. She gritted her teeth and lifted both of them out of the river.

John took over from there. She trusted him to get her home, now that she’d gotten them most of the way.

***

Jessica dragged herself out of bed a full twelve hours later. She tossed a bagel into the toaster and checked her phone while she waited. There were three messages from Simon, all checking if she was okay and needed backup. 

_All good_ , she sent back _Mission with John, there were dinosaurs. Home safe. Pick up the battery tomorrow?_

Jessica shook her head at herself when she reread it. Not long ago, dinosaurs alone would have been worth a twenty minute rant, let alone portals and pocket dimensions. He responded with a thumbs up a few minutes later. 

She got out her bagel and checked her list of things to do. She had homework, of course, and the next set of videos to watch for her classes. Then there was the debrief of the mission for the League. John had said something about checking over the area before they had parted...

Her ring was down to 5% power...

Well, she'd already told Simon she'd stop by tomorrow, and she couldn't very well fly all the way there on only 5%...

"Hey John, you there?" She said to her ring. She willed the connection to go through, and the little tug behind her heart confirmed it a second before he answered.

"Jessica? Didn't think I'd hear from you so soon. What's up?" There was a smile in his voice.

"I was hoping you could spare a charge, plus you know, debrief stuff."

"Sure, I have some time if you think you're up for it. Where should I meet you?"

"There's this place up on Alberta. I'm craving ice cream."

She sent him the address.

Getting ready to leave, she stood in front of her door. Seven locks stared back at her, daring her to go through with it. She was feeling good today. It was easy to undo the deadbolt, and pull back the chain. It wasn't until she had her hand on the knob that she had to stop, and breathe. That little voice was whispering about failure and lies. About how John was just putting up with her. About how Simon hated her for holding him back.

Today was a very bright day.

The little voice faded as she stepped into the sunshine. A short walk and bus ride later and she was walking into Salt&Straw. She went ahead and ordered for John since he hadn't arrived yet. She had parked herself at a table outside when he sank down from the sky. She just raised an eyebrow until he powered down his aura and switched to civilian clothing. Only then did she push his bowl towards him. He traded it for the battery he pulled out of the air.

"The League did several scans of the area. As far as we can tell, the portal is firmly attached to earth, even if you did move it to here in the city rather than the arctic."

She nodded, whispering her oath as she pressed her ring to the battery. "Firmly attached, so does that mean it's stable? Nothing else slipping through?"

John picked up his spoon, "Unfortunately not. Just like before Skartaris as a dimension will fluctuate, that means that the possibility exists for things to slip through." He took a bite, then made a face and looked down at his ice cream like it had betrayed him. "What is this supposed to be?"

"Ice cream."

"It's got mushrooms in it."

"Yep, mine is tabasco, want to trade?"

"Is this some kind of generational thing, or a foodie thing?"

She shrugged, "A Portland thing."

John took another small bite considering the ice cream carefully. "You know, with the portal, I could probably call someone in to help with the city. If you think you need the help."

Jessica looked at the street, the pedestrians, the trees and shops and cars and sky. "Thanks, but I think I've got it."

John smiled and nodded. He never actually admitted to liking the ice cream, despite eating every bite.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading/listening! A few podfic source credits:
> 
> Cover image: Volcanoes under Grey Sky by Capung Purnomo on Pexels
> 
> Ambient Sound: Dinotopia, Into the Deep, Open Ocean, Cavern of Lost Souls, Medieval Battle, Blacksmith Shoppe, and Lively Cafe by Tabletop Audio
> 
> SFX from Freesound.org:   
> rbh thunder storm by RHumphries  
> 2013-07-16 rose garden transit by tim.khan  
> "Door, Front, Opening, A.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk)  
> Sci-Fi Hyperacceleration 1 by vartioh


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